Most young companies dream of getting their first heavyweight customer -- a huge player, central to their industry, like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), or better yet, a General Electric (NYSE: GE).

Snaring such a customer can change an entrepreneur's fortunes overnight. Of course. But how do you gain the attention and trust of a large and important company? It's certainly tough -- but there are some strategies to help out.

First of all, make sure you are in a niche that large companies don't consider core to their business, advises Steve Waldis, who is the CEO and founder of Synchronoss Technologies (NASDAQ: SNCR). The company develops software for the telecom industry and even powers the activation for Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone. This was the result of a deep customer relationship with AT&T (NYSE: T).

As has been expected, NetSuite filed its IPO yesterday. The company – which is backed by Oracle's (NASDAQ: ORCL) Larry Ellison – is a leader in a new approach to software: on-demand. This uses the Internet as a way to deliver business applications.

To get some insight on the IPO, I interviewed Chris Cabrera, who is the CEO and founder of Xactly (which is a venture-backed on-demand software company).

How are things going at Xactly?

Things at Xactly continue to go great. We have more than 70 customers, we are dominating the on-demand compensation space, we were recently recognized by the ABA (American Business Awards) as "Best New Company" and we just moved into 30k square feet of prime real estate in downtown San Jose to house our 100 employees.

Xactly snagged a cool $15 million from VC investors, which include Alloy Ventures, Bay Partners, Rembrandt Ventures, and others. The company develops on-demand software to help companies manage the performance of their sales forces. As seen with other companies like salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE: CRM) and NetSuite, the on-demand approach is gaining lots of momentum. A report from Triple Tree estimates that the market to grow from $2.3 billion in 2003 to $7.2 billion by 2008.

I had a chance to talk to Xactly's CEO and founder, Chris Cabrera. He said that the financing round was "lighting fast" and took only 45 days to close. He got five terms sheets.

"When we started the company two years ago," said Cabrera, "we thought our customer base would be mostly small and medium size businesses. But we quickly realized that big companies want on-demand solutions."

As a sign, the average Xactly implementation has 175 users.

So is venture funding getting frothy again?

Not necessarily. According to Cabrera: "There are a lot of companies that are calling themselves on-demand players and it makes it tough for VCs to get through the clutter. But if your company has a solid on-demand platform and customer momentum, the capital will be there. Lots of capital."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.